Four years ago, New Jersey embarked on a sweeping government ethics reform program. In the first part of an eight-day series, Gannett New Jersey looks at what has changed - and what remains the same.

Sep. 30, 2007

All 120 seats of the Legislature are up for election in November. Following the 2003 election, state lawmakers — this photo shows the Assembly in session — ended nepotism within their ranks, passed 23 ethics reform laws, and tamped down — but did not totally ban — pay-to-play. / (STAFF PHOTO: TANYA BREEN)

INVESTIGATIONS EDITOR

The parade in criminal court of New Jersey kingmakers, lawmakers and backwater politicians has become a constant sight in the last four years.

More than 40 public officials have been sent to prison. Many others face trial. Some have lost jobs, elections and allies.

For the rest of us, the criminal probes hint at a much-needed ebb tide in New Jersey's sea of corruption.

New Jersey's nascent ethics revolution secured its first foothold in 2003 after publication of the Asbury Park Press' "Profiting from Public Service" series, which exposed the myriad conflicts of lawmakers and others in power.

The series, available at www.app.com, detailed how select legislators converted the government into a cash machine for themselves, their families and political supporters.

Gannett New Jersey reporters and editors spent the last three months measuring the progress of ethics reform in the state.

Starting today, and for the next seven days, the Press and the six other Gannett New Jersey newspapers will show you where ethics reform has worked, where it has failed, and where it needs improvement. We'll point out the leaders who have championed ethics reform, and the lawmakers who still wallow in self-enriching conflicts.

The investigative series found that:

— The most powerful lawmakers turned their public work into private gain;

— Conflicts of interest still can be hidden by lawmakers, despite improved financial disclosure rules;

— Loopholes in the new anti-pay-to-play law are being exploited to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars from government vendors to political parties as a way to return to 2003, when campaign cash was commonly used to win no-bid government contracts;

— Clean elections, a pilot program that uses public funds to remove special-interest money from legislative campaigns, could work, but it likely will be costly — $40 million to $120 million when both houses are up for election.

"Profiting from Public Service" struck such a chord with the voters in 2003 that the election debate that year shifted from the routine campaign rhetoric to the principles of the candidates. Powerful Republican Senate President John O. Bennett III of Monmouth County, who, the public learned, had carved out high-paying legal jobs from several local towns and put his mother and mother-in-law on his legislative payroll, lost a re-election bid that was a certainty just a few months earlier.

Shortly after the 2003 election, the Legislature ended its own nepotism, passed 23 ethics reform laws, and tamped down — but did not totally ban — pay-to-play. Not satisfied with the state's languid response, 83 towns plus Monmouth, Atlantic and Mercer counties passed absolute pay-to-play bans that simply said: If you work for us, you can't contribute political money to us.

Assemblyman Michael Panter, D-Monmouth, elected in 2003 on an ethics reform campaign, said changing attitudes in Trenton four years ago was like trying to "turn a battleship on a dime . . . 90 percent of our ethics reforms were met with hostility."

His proposed comprehensive pay-to-play ban was rejected in favor of a less stringent one. But Panter said attitudes on ethics have changed, and "it is getting better every day."

On the crime-fighting side of the equation, Christopher J. Christie, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey who has targeted corruption for the last six years, has prosecuted more than 100 public officials at the state, county and municipal levels.

He sent Democratic super-boss John A. Lynch Jr. — the power broker who helped get now-disgraced former Gov. James E. McGreevey elected - to prison for 39 months on a corruption charge. Major land developer and Democratic contributor Charles Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison.

In 2004, Assemblyman Anthony Impreveduto, the former head of the Legislature's ethics commission, resigned his seat and was placed on five years probation after pleading guilty to state charges of using his own campaign fund for personal expenses.

This year, other lawmakers have said they feel they are in Christie's sights.

Does this all add up to a clean New Jersey government?

Hardly.

Even Christie says we can't prosecute our way out of corruption.

Criminal convictions are just a sign that some, but not all, of the political cancer has been excised by the doctor.

But the body politic can be healed only by you, the voter.

All 120 seats in the Assembly and state Senate are up for grabs Nov. 6.

State Sen. Leonard T. Connors Jr., R-Ocean, who retires in January after 25 years in the upper house, said he is "disillusioned" with the current state of affairs in Trenton.

If government is truly of the people, then the people are the only ones who can fix the problem. "As long as the public allows them to do what they are doing, they are going to continue doing it," Connors said.

But voter turnout has waned in a generation. In 1981, 64 percent of the public voted in the gubernatorial and legislative races. In 2005, the last gubernatorial contest, just 49 percent turned out at the polls.

Michael T. Vail, a certified public accountant from Aberdeen and an active voter, thinks the declining turnout is due to the electorate getting too many gut-punches over the years: People are working longer to pay rising property taxes and have less free time to mull the pros and cons of candidates.

Four years ago, Vail thought lawmakers couldn't effectively stem tax increases because their own self-interests got in the way of clear-eyed judgment. Today, he said, he "hasn't seen too much in terms of material ethics changes."

"By and large, we have a voting public that is disconnected," Vail said, "and that is the worst thing for our system."